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In memory: Professor Geoffrey Leech
It is with great sorrow that we report the death on 19th August of Professor Geoffrey Leech. Geoff was not only the founder of the UCREL research centre for corpus linguistics at Lancaster University, he was also the first Professor and founding Head of the Department of Linguistics and English Language. His contributions to linguistics –…
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Gypsies, tramps and thieves? UK national newspaper depictions of Romanians and Bulgarians analysed
British tabloid newspapers repeatedly associated Romanians – but not Bulgarians – with criminality and anti-social behavior during 2012-2013, a comprehensive new “big data” report by Oxford University’s Migration Observatory shows. The report Bulgarians and Romanians in the British national press was undertaken by CASS Challenge Panel Member William Allen and Dora-Olivia Vicol at the Migration Observatory at Oxford University.…
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How to be a PhD student (by someone who just was), Part 3: Towards the viva
After successfully defending my viva early this year, I’ve been sharing some of the lessons I learned over my 38 months as a PhD student. In this installment, I talk about powering through your final year and preparing for your viva. If you missed the previous entries, click through to read Part 1 (Preparing for the…
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Spoken BNC2014 project announcement
We are excited to announce that the ESRC-funded Centre for Corpus Approaches to Social Science (CASS) at Lancaster University and Cambridge University Press have agreed to collaborate on the compilation of a new, publicly accessible corpus of spoken British English called the ‘Spoken British National Corpus 2014’ (the Spoken BNC2014). The aim of the Spoken…
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New working paper on “Changing Climate and Society: The Surprising Case of Brazil” now available
Why is Brazil unique when it comes to climate change? Brazil is a major emerging economy and it is the sixth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases. However, its fossil fuel-based emissions are low by global standards. Brazil has been innovative in developing some relevant low carbon ways of generating energy and pioneered significant transport innovations. It…
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Summer at SILK Road
On Saturday 5th July I’ll be boarding a plane bound for Hong Kong once again this year, as I journey east for the SILK Road International Summer School. The programme, organised by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University’s Faculty of Humanities, will put me and four other Lancaster University Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences students…
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CASS visit to Ghana
On June 24th, I and three other members of CASS spent a week in Accra, Ghana, demonstrating corpus methods and our own research at two universities, the University of Ghana and the recently established Lancaster University Ghana campus in Accra. From the UK it’s just over a six hour flight although thankfully only one hour…
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A Journey into Transcription, Part 2: Getting Started
training: MASS VERB: The action of teaching a person or animal a particular skill or type of behaviour. So how to begin? With experts as our guides (and thankfully no animals in sight!)… The Context: The first week was to be dedicated to training. We began by watching a short video clip of a Trinity examination in…
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Reflections from the CASS student challenge panel member, part 3
Pamela Irwin, this year’s CASS student challenge panel member, is looking back on her past year of research. This is part 3 of her reflections — need to catch up on the others? Click here to read part 1, or here to read part 2. Lately, I have been examining sociolinguistics and its related sub-disciplines as part of…
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Newby Fellow appointed to CASS
The Department of Linguistics and English Language has recently appointed a Newby Fellow, Dr. Helen Baker, to work on the CASS project entitled ‘Newspapers, Poverty and Long-Term Change. A Corpus Analysis of Five Centuries of Texts’. Dr. Baker is a social historian who was awarded her Ph.D. in Russian History at the University of Leeds in 2002. Her thesis…
CASS Briefings
CASS: Briefings is a series of short, quick reads on the work being done at the ESRC/CASS research centre at Lancaster University, UK.